


all i want to get is a little bit closer

by sapphicstarfall



Category: Detroit Evolution - Fandom, Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Lots of Firsts, i needed content for this ship so i'm doing it my damn self, may get a little angsty, probably gonna get a little angsty, probably lots of pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23662873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicstarfall/pseuds/sapphicstarfall
Summary: (takes place after Detroit Evolution)Ada's a deviant now. She's having lots of feelings and all of them are new, but the one she likes the most is the one she gets when she sees a certain auburn-haired android.
Relationships: Ada/North
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've become very obsessed with this ship very quickly so here we are I guess.

Ada tightened her grip on her coat as she stared at Jericho from across the street. It hadn’t even been 24 hours since she deviated and here she was, running right back. The truth was that this was the only place she could think of. The bullethole in her shoulder still needed fixing and she knew they’d welcome her in. Even though she didn’t deserve it.  
Memories started bubbling up again, flashes of sparks and bright blue and horrific screams. 

So many screams. 

Ada shut her eyes, willing them to go away, as she had done several times since she had deviated. But they were still there, she knew they were. Waiting for another moment of peace and quiet to come back and remind her of her crimes. They would have to wait. She looked back up at the building, steeled herself, and began walking to the door. 

The normalcy was almost unnerving. Everything was the same as when she left, people were still going about their lives. It made her inexplicably uncomfortable. As she sat there unsure of what exactly to do next, someone rushed up to her. She recognized him from seeing him around Jericho and if it were any other day she might’ve been able to think of his name but for now it escaped her. 

“Ada are you alright? Nobody has seen you for two days, we were starting to worry!”

He glanced down at the blue stain on her shirt and immediately led her to a room where she could sit down. She was given thirium and another android came in and immediately got to work fixing her up. Ada let all of this happen but it was almost as if she wasn’t there. Not in the way she felt when she looked back on her pre-deviancy memories, just far away, like she was on autopilot.

After finally being given a new shirt, the android that had first greeted her led her back out into the front entrance of Jericho. All of a sudden multiple people were surrounding her, questions were flying at her too quickly for her to even begin to register in her state. It was too much. As Ada sat there stuttering, trying to get the words to come out, a voice cut through the noise.

“Alright everyone, back up!”

The questions stopped and she felt a hand on her arm. She looked up and saw someone she’d never expected to see. North. The North that had led the revolution alongside Markus. Ada had seen many of her speeches and seen plenty of her on TV but she had never come even close to meeting her due to the fact that she had other things to do that were probably much more important than micromanaging Jericho. But here she was, looking at her with inquisitive eyes as she asked in a low voice, 

“Are you okay?”

She could feel dozens of eyes on her and it made her want to curl inwards until she disappeared but when she focused on the light but reassuring touch on her arm, she found the strength to give a simple nod.

“Party’s over everyone, get back to what you were doing.”

Just like that, the crowd dispersed and she let out an artificial breath. North dropped her hand to her side and Ada already missed the touch and the comfort it brought but she figured that was something better kept to herself. North motioned for her to follow as they walked into the office next door to her old one. Once she had taken a seat, it took a moment for Ada to recompose herself and when she did she spoke up,

“Pardon my asking but what are you doing here? Doesn’t Markus need help with his current work?”

North looked up at her from a pile of papers on the desk.

“Between the recent murder and you going missing, he figured it wouldn’t hurt for me to drop in and see how things were. Besides, he has plenty of other perfectly capable people around if he needs them.”

North walked around the desk to sit next to Ada. There was moment of palpable silence before she said,

“Ada, I understand If you don’t want to talk about what happened. I don’t want you to feel like you're under any pressure to give everyone all the details. The cops might be a different story but I’ll make sure everyone else around here knows to lay off.”

The stillness from the moment outside the office was back, but it felt different this time. She didn’t feel as tense, she didn’t feel like she was under some microscope. There was only one set of eyes staring at her and they were kind and understanding. Ada looked down at her hands that were no longer stained blue and back up at North.

“Thank you.”

North smiled. It was small and brief, but it stuck with Ada for the entire walk back to her room.  
Once she had closed the door, she collapsed onto her bed and let out a sigh. She didn’t know what she expected when she came back to Jericho, but it certainly wasn’t that and now she didn’t know what to focus on first. The way her thirium pump was still beating far faster than it should’ve or that for the first time since she had been woken up, she had stopped thinking about what she’d done.

~

“Please! You don’t have to do this!!”

Ada looked down at the helpless AC900, still trying to crawl away, fear written all over her tear-stained face. She only smiled as she leaned down and murmured,

“But you see, I do. Don’t worry. Your thirium pump will be put to good use.”

Without another word she began tearing into the other android’s chest. Although the sound of tearing metal wasn’t enough to drown out the dwindling screams, Ada couldn’t be bothered to care. As she yanked the pump out of the body, thirium dripping and running down her hands, she found it almost beautiful in a way. This brought her one step closer to achieving her true potential, to truly evolving. She _would_ achieve her purpose. Soon. 

Very soon.

~

Ada woke from stasis, eyes blinking. She should’ve known better. Those memories were never going away, and why should they? She murdered dozens of her own, she deserves to be haunted by them. Nines and the DPD should’ve taken her in when they had the chance. 

Maybe there still was a chance. There was nothing saying she couldn’t turn herself in. It would be better for everyone, and the door to her room looked all too inviting. It would be better than sitting here feeling trapped in her own room at any rate.

Another moment passed, and with a new energy, Ada stood up and left her room. She was almost to the front door and she was so damn close to leaving, but the light seeping through the crack in the door to the office North had brought her to earlier was like a beacon and she found herself walking towards it instead. 

Peeking in through the door, she saw North at her desk with her head in her hands. Ada could’ve turned around and walked away. She probably should’ve. What she actually did was gently push open the door,

“North? Why aren’t you in stasis? Is something wrong?”

North immediately looked up to meet her eyes before shaking her head,

“No, nothing’s wrong. There’s just a lot to get done and someone has to do it.”

Ada looked back towards the front door, then back to North. Against her better judgement, she sat down in the chair across from North and scooched closer. When North looked to her with confusion in her eyes Ada simply shrugged,

“There’s no reason this has to be a one person task. Not to mention this is my job, or was at least.”

There was a pause, then North laughed before sliding some of the papers over to her and Ada couldn’t help but think that North’s laugh was the prettiest sound she’d ever heard.

Another thing probably better kept to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slides in with the next chapter nearly 2 months later*
> 
> if it isn't already obvious, I stayed up all night writing the last bit of this and am now posting it at 2:30 am so my apologies if it seems a bit rushed/unpolished. I've been too scared to continue this fic for a while but jo wanted me to write some more so how could I refuse? sooo, enjoy my late night writing

It had been three days since she returned to Jericho and Ada still didn’t really know where to begin. How do you go back to living normally when you don’t even know what normal means anymore? It’s not like anyone was jumping to give her work. Everyone around her seemed to be walking on eggshells. They were acting like she was some china doll that would break if they said the wrong thing. She couldn’t blame them though. After all, they were under the impression she’d gone through something traumatic. Although that assumption wasn’t necessarily wrong, Ada knew they were thinking of something much different. They probably thought she’d been attacked, that she was a victim. 

Much more generous and forgiving than the truth. 

Her feelings? They were a mess. For starters, everything was new. She knew that there were nice feelings but she certainly wasn’t feeling a lot of them. All the regret and anger and sorrow that had been held back by the wall for the last year or so came crashing down. She was grateful for everyone’s kindness but there was always the screaming in the back of her head that she didn’t deserve it. She was all too aware that if people knew who she really was, what she did, that they would turn away. She would be alone. Even more alone than she already felt. 

Of course there was the nagging fondness that seemed to worm its way into her chest whenever North was around, but by now she had chalked that up to some side effect of deviancy that she had no intention of learning more about. 

She had been trying to make herself useful. Tidying up, welcoming new arrivals, paperwork. But it was never enough and she was always left to wander around the building with her thoughts.

Maybe it was stupid, but Ada had hoped that Nines would never show up. That he would think her having access to his interface would be enough and he would forget she existed and she would never have to see him again. 

Her mistake. 

The next morning she was going about doing her menial tasks when she saw Nines himself walk in the door. She promptly turned around and started to walk away as fast as she could without raising attention when she heard Nines’ voice from behind,

“Ada wait!”

Every part of her wanted to keep walking but unfortunately, this was a public place and there were still appearances to keep up and thus she sighed before turning to face him. He caught up to her and looked around before asking, 

“Would it be alright if we were to talk alone for a moment?”

Ada steeled herself, took a deep breath, and nodded. They stepped into Ada’s office and the door closed behind them with a soft thud. It was silent for a few minutes. Ada could only assume Nines was waiting for her to say something first. If so he would be sorely disappointed. After a few more minutes of silence, Nines finally spoke up,

“Are you alright?”

Another beat of quiet. 

“I’m fine.”

She was trying to focus but it was hard to do so when all she saw when she looked at Nines was the image of him lying on the ground in the alley after she probed his software. She let her head drop and she stared at the ground. 

“Nines why are you here?”

“I had heard you came back to Jericho and I just wanted to make sure you’re doing okay… Are you doing okay?”

“About as okay as I can be doing after deviating less than a week ago.”

Nines didn’t say anything after that. Maybe he felt guilty? Or maybe he was just trying to figure out what to say. rA9 knows Ada was. At this point she didn’t know which was worse. Having to continue this conversation, or letting the quiet stretch on.

It only took a few more minutes of staring at the ground without either of them saying a word until Ada decided it was the silence. Definitely the silence. 

“Why?”

Nines blinked as his LED flashed yellow. 

“I’m sorry?”

Ada forced herself to look at him and her voice got a little louder as she continued, 

“Why are you so intent on helping me? Don’t you remember what I did to you? I nearly killed you, I should be that last person you want to be around right now. You should hate me-”

“But I don’t. Ada, I know that wasn’t you. You didn’t make that choice.”

He reached out to take her hand. 

“Even if it wasn’t, you’ve already helped. I’m a deviant. I’m awake. You could’ve forgotten about me by now and moved on to your next case so why haven’t you?”

“Because I remember what it’s like to be newly deviant. It’s strange and unsettling. Markus didn’t have time to help me learn what it means to be alive or what it means to be free. That can be hard to navigate and I had to do it largely on my own. The same doesn’t have to be true for you.”

She felt him give her hand a small squeeze. He sounded so sincere, so genuine. 

Nines wanted to help. 

Ada thought about his words. The last two days had been the most terrifying of her life. She didn’t know where to begin with all the new experiences and feelings and here Nines was offering his hand, quite literally. But just as she looked up at him and his open smile, his voice rang through her head.

_“This isn’t the route back to Jericho.”_

As did her own.

_“No, Nines. It’s isn’t.”_

His expression of fear and pain permanently etched into her mind. She ripped her hand away. 

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t fine.

“I don’t need your help. I don’t want it.”

She desperately wanted help. She wanted someone to guide her through this insanity. She also wanted Nines to get as far away from her as he could, for both their sakes. 

Ada ignored Nines’ protests as she pushed past him and walked out the door as fast as her legs could carry her. The only issue was that she didn’t know where to. Everything was feeling rather small and cramped. Her thoughts refused to gather and settle. She didn’t know she could feel dizzy but here she was, head spinning. After looking in every other possible direction for some kind of escape her eyes came to rest on the stairs to the second floor. If she remembered correctly, there was a fairly secluded balcony. That would help. It had to. Regardless, Ada didn’t have another second to consider it before she was rushing up the stairs.

She let the door close behind her as she walked to the edge of the balcony, the open air already a welcome change. She could feel her thrium pump returning to its natural rate and the suffocating feeling finally ended.

She rarely came up here before today. She’d never felt the need to. But now, looking out at the city of Detroit, she couldn’t believe she never had. Even in the day the buildings glimmered in the sunlight and she would gladly take this over the activity of downstairs.

Ada had never really appreciated things that were said to be aesthetically pleasing. To her they were simply a distraction. “Beautiful” things served no real purpose so she always thought it seemed wasteful to dedicate her time to them. 

Just another thing deviancy had opened her eyes to she supposed. 

Her silent wonder was cut short when she heard the door open from behind her. Ada prepared herself to see a white jacket but instead she turned around to find North. She let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the view.

“I’m guessing that was all a bit too much?”

Ada chuckled, “You could say that.”

North appeared out of the right side of her eye and she turned to look at her. There it was again. That look in North’s eyes. The one that made her feel safe and seen. Almost too seen for her liking.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Ada buried her head in her hands for a moment before looking back to North. 

“If I’m being honest, I’d rather talk about anything else.”

North gave a small smile and launched into a lengthy description of the things she and Markus had been working on.

“Well I talked to Markus earlier and helped him plan next week’s rally. It’s going to be the biggest we’ve had yet. We decided…”

North kept talking but it became akin to white noise. It wasn’t that what she was talking about wasn’t interesting, but rather that Ada began noticing many things she hadn’t during the conversation they had her first night back. Like the way North’s eyes lit up when she started talking about the event, and how animated she was in comparison to her usual more stoic public persona, and the way her hair began to fall out of her braid and into her face in small pieces but she was too focused on what she was saying to notice or care. 

She was… beautiful.

Did Ada’s thirium pump just skip a beat? Surely she imagined that. Of course she did. 

It took a moment for Ada to come back down to Earth and catch the rest of North’s description of the event, and she enjoyed every minute of it. 

Once North finished, she looked to the door and back to Ada. 

“I won’t pretend to know what you went through, but I want you to know that I’m here for you.”

She took a pause to put her hand on Ada’s. 

“If you ever need to talk, if you need some help, or even just a friend, I’ll be here. Whenever you’re ready.”

And with that, she grinned and walked away, leaving Ada to process both her comforting words and the ghost of North’s touch.


End file.
